My favourite creative Christmas book

A progressive method book for Christmas carol lead sheets by Susan Staples Bell

With the Christmas carol season upon us, I’ve been revisiting the creative Christmas books I reviewed last year — and I’ve realised I have a clear favourite.

Susan Staples Bell’s 20 Favourite Christmas Songs is a really fantastic resource for this season. It’s so easy to use that you can incorporate it into lessons without too much preparation. The helpful instructions make it perfect for any student who is unfamiliar with leadsheets, or feels nervous about figuring them out for themselves.

Even better, it’s great value — and currently on sale!

Here’s my original review…

The full title of this particular book is — deep breath! — 20 Favourite Christmas Songs How to Play Lead Sheets: A Method Book with Instructions At Every Step and Example Arrangements

It’s self-published by Susan Staples Bell, an enormously prolific composer and a piano teacher with 30 years experience.

It’s quite rare to come across a book with such a lengthy title and subtitle, almost like a Victorian novel! I find it really rather charming; much like Susan herself, who is an enthusiastic advocate for creativity.

The title describes exactly what the book delivers: this is actually a progressive method book, which differentiates it significantly from the other books I’ve reviewed.

This works much better than I expected

I confess, I was initially a little dubious about the premise. A method book is usually something a student would work through over the course of six months to a year. As much as I enjoy a good carol, I do not want to be teaching Christmas music year round!!

But as I played through it, I realised that it actually works really well.

Firstly, because the lead sheets are ordered progressively, it’s easy to pick a suitable carol for a student. (That being said, if a student particularly wants to learn a carol that Staples Bell has assigned to a too challenging section, they will likely find themselves frustrated. In this case one of the other books I’ve reviewed would be a better fit).

Secondly, as Susan suggests in the video below, it’s a good book to give to students to explore independently. The instructions for each piece are sufficient that many students will be able to figure out a lot on their own, and you can then extend their learning during the lesson.

Thirdly, you could actually use the book as a proper method book for students who has never played from lead sheets before, provided the student is sufficiently advanced. There are many intermediate teenage and adult students out there who would love to learn to play from lead sheets, and this book would be a good guide. They would quickly work through the elementary exercises over a couple of lessons but would then find plenty to dig into in the intermediate section.

Finally — and for the purposes of this website perhaps most importantly? — the book would also be an excellent introduction for teachers who have never taught from lead sheets before. Indeed, in the forward Staples Bell writes that the book is explicitly designed to help piano teachers who are new to lead sheets.

What’s included

The book divides the carols according to the following schema:

• Elementary:

  • Jingle Bells

  • O Christmas Tree

  • Good King Wenceslas

  • Up on the Housetop

Jingle Bells — from the elementary section

• Late Elementary

  • Silent Night

  • Jolly Ol’ St Nicholas

  • The First Nöel

  • Joy to the World

  • We Three Kings

  • Coventry Carol

Coventry Carol — from the late elementary section

• Early Intermediate

  • God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

  • Away in a Manger

  • Deck the Halls

Deck the Halls — from the early intermediate section

• Intermediate and Beyond

  • Angels We Have Heard on high

  • Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

  • We Wish You A Merry Christmas

  • What Child is This?

  • O Come, All Ye Faithful

  • Ding Dong! Merrily on High

  • In the Bleak Midwinter

I estimate the difficulty level as ranging from UK Grades 1-3.

Sharps are introduced in the elementary section, flats and minor keys first appear in the late-elementary. Fingerings and lyrics are included throughout. Occasionally there is the odd chord that doesn’t sound quite right to my ear, but generally it’s a useful guide.

Suggested accompaniments are included for each carol and become progressively more difficult, though never excessively so: the progression is very well thought through. Theory concepts are explained along the way. By the end of the book the student will be able to write arrangements in all elementary keys with many of the most commonly used accompaniment patterns.

One of the things I particularly like is that the sheet music leaves space for students to notate their own left hand. Strictly speaking, that means this isn’t a lead sheet! But that’s actually great, because it allows students the option of handwriting their own arrangement.

Appendices

There’s a lengthy set of appendices, including:

• A guide to how to learn lead sheets

• A “chord builder” worksheet

• Chord formulas, with for example the diminished triad expressed as 1-♭3-♭5

• A chart of common chords, given as letter names

• A guide to reading notes on the staff

• Various pages of major scales

• Various pages of major triads and their inversions

• A diagram of the circle of fifths

Price and availability

The price is extremely competitive. At $40 for a studio license, I don’t know of a more affordable alternative (except for asking your students to buy their own music!)

It’s available direct from Susan Staples Bell’s website and, unlike the other books I’ll be reviewing, this is not available as a physical book.

Conclusion

This book will appeal to you if:

• you’ve never taught carols from leadsheets before, and/or

• you have intermediate-advanced students who’ve never learnt music from leadsheets before, and/or

• you like studio licenses

If that’s you, check it out!

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